Opinion pieces, travel articles, places and people; lots of poetry; commentary on current events and history and whatever else shows up on the radar. Articles have been numbered (since Sept. 2004). Go n-eiri an t-adh leat.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

A cold fierce rainlashes the windows;pulling across the curtainsas the evening draws in,we lay more sods of turfupon the faintly flickering,sputtering fire, then nurseour drams of single malt.We listen to, for we cannot ignore,the half-human shrieksof the wild Atlantic winds.

The pounding rain, the heartless wind,now as in times pastand in the coming days to be,deride our aspirations;mock our faltering, our timidsense of connection,our humanity.

On that bedroom wallhoused in an ancient frameis a faded stitching sampler:"God Bless Our Happy Home",piously, if a little uncertainlyaccomplished, by her own hand,by Emily May MacCarthyon October 20, 1843.She was the fifth of eleven childrenand one of the sevenwho starved to deathalong with her despairing parents.

In the photographs, dappergentlemen with large moustachesstare into the unforgiving lenswith set expressionsof puzzled defiance; they pose,stiffly, among tasteful studiobackdrops: a small side table,a pillar or two, potted palms.James Boyle Roche. Photographer.15 Bridge Street. Ennisis stamped within an ovalin the corner: the buildingstill exists, the ground flooris now a fast-food restaurant.

Wedding couples,equally unrelaxed, staresightlessly from the past; they stare at me across a canyonof mutual incomprehension:I could not even beginto understand these people.He sits, she stands,but she places a tentativepleading handupon his rigid manly shoulder.

There is anotherstrangely out-of-place pictureof my great-great-uncle Marteen,shot dead in the civil war.A cocky 24-year-oldwith a cheeky grin,he is brandishingan enormous revolverand smokes a jaunty cigarette.I can tell from the look of himwe could have had a drink,he would have cut throughthe damp lace-curtain piety,the respectability,the fear.

But the rain will have none of it:it comes down in buckets,it comes down in cascades.You will never nevernever be free, it says:in this country you will never be released.

Liam is uncharacteristicallysubdued, even embarrassed:he shifts from foot to foot, in frontof the now warm and blazing fire.

Upstairsthere are so many old photographshere and there on the dresser,even more on the sideboards:cloche hats on smiling elegant women,baggy suits on the gents, all caps and hats;they grin and squint in the harsh sunlightof those long forgotten days, sportingfashionable shortened neckties:my unknown, all but unknowabledead ancestors.

A flicker of sympathyif not of recognitionslips throughthis threnody of regret.

Listen, I think I'm going to bed,it's been a really long day, I say.Liam frowns. An awkwardsilence ensues: Emmmm ...Listen to me. There's somethingI really need to tell you.It's about the family ....

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Band made the trip up to the Big Smoke last Sunday to play at Kao's reception. I came up by bus the previous day and spent a long liquid evening renewing acquaintance with Alan, the manager of Dubliner's in Ikebukuro, and met a number of other Irish lads who showed up, including Mike, who is pissed off big time with all the chaps in suits and significant neckties that pass for the Irish elite in Tokyo. He suggested a new organization called RIJ (Real Irish in Japan) and we all immediately agreed to join just to shut him up and get on with the pints and the talk. Good craic, and not a spot of bother with the head the next morning which is a sure guarantee the beer was good. The reception next day was held in a French restaurant, Chez Pierre, and I got talking to Pierre himself who hails from Brittany ("anozzer Kelt!!")and says he's been in Japan for 40 years.

The music went down well and we had to do several encores. Afterwards, Kenji & Koji and myself headed off for Paddy Foley's in Roppongi where we had a fair few jars and met Paul, the barman, who had just arrived in Japan six weeks ago. I gave Paul one of our homemade CDs to stick on -- and the manager came over and asked us to play a gig!! Ah, well, too bad we don't live in Tokyo. Not really, I can't stand the place ....!!

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Love and death, possessing and killing,Are the dark foundations of the human soul.-- Emile Zola

O happy snappy little proleSign yourself upon the dole.Go out on Friday, Saturday night,And get yourself into a fight.Smash the bloke who spills your drink,Go with feelings, never think.A pint glass is the warrior’s cup,So chase the girls and knock ‘em up.Social Services, police?Wind ‘em up and never cease.Football’s the modern field of battle,So go in with your mates and rattleTheir cages. Towering ragesMake you a man among men!And then, in a short while, whenSadly you end up on a slab,Sliced and diced by Dr. McNabAt the age of twenty, twenty-one,You’ll have fought and you’ll have wonYou little tit, your little bitIn restoring dear old BritainTo things that once were writtenBy poets and sagesAbout the Dark Ages.John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whisky,Kept its bones for dumb-bells to use when he was fifty *.

George Tremayne was a man of fameWell known in local parts;He smiled and broke the young girls’ hearts,But then broke one too many:He seduced my sister Jenny.Now George lies deep in the earth beneath,I was grave and polite; I sent a wreath.

Unfriendly friendly universe,I pack your stars into my purse

A weak cheer for our weary warriorsAs they tread their hard way home;Dispensers of Death, and yet,It was through no wish of their own.They are eager for love once more,For simple acceptance; no foreign shoreOf unburied corpses, nor stink of war;Eager to return to placid streams,To ignore their dark unsettled dreamsAnd live as once they lived before.But every man who was there can sayIt never quite works out that way.They need sweet sleep so badly,And have no further wish to fight;They would return their medals gladly,For just one dreamless, peaceful night.Every desire is a fear, every fear is a desire.

Doctor Mortimer duly arrived from DevonOn that clear September morning.Holmes and I had had warningBut nothing under the canopy of HeavenCould have prepared us for the Tale he told.That Hound from Hell upon the Moors!Heave aboot, ye Knaves and Hoors,And roll them spittin’ cannons out!Take aim, amidships, wait for the shout,And dream on gold and jewels.

She would not think him half so cruelWere she smiling prettily before him nowInstead of mouldering in the tomb;Alive, at first, but with no room,So very little room to move,But time to think, before she died,Of the earth and stones above her.He had long since ceased to love her,And arranged it all; if only to proveThe art of murder should best be appliedTo enhance the fear of approaching doom.Her fingernails torn to shreds, he imagines.The darkness, the solitude, the weight:Calculations of his cold dark hate.

Here’s a cracking new idea:You ready?- She’s a blonde/ brunette/ a redhead- She’s young and sexy- She’s got a filthy rich husband- He’s old and fat- She likes you- She makes passionate love to you- She says she adores you- She wants you, needs you, etc.- She begs you to kill her husband- She’ll inherit the money- You’ll wait until things cool down- You’ll “meet”, you’ll get married- You’ll live happily ever after

Me, I was in the Boy ScoutsSo I know a thing or two,( a couple of years in the Army as well,but, truth to tell, Scouts is all you needto learn depravity, get up to speed)So this is what I’ll say to you:She’ll be sitting on a sunny beach,Out of call and out of reach,Cuddling with her personal bankerWhile you, you trusting silly wanker,Will be sprawled out at your leisure,Doing 20 years at Her Majesty’s pleasure.Dreamsister, dream once more of meAnd I will sleepily dream of thee;It is only in dreams my life has meaning,When I hear you calling, softly keening.

Inchigeelagh.

My love and my mateThat I never thought deadTill your horse came to meWith bridle trailing,All blood from foreheadTo polished saddleWhere you should be,Either sitting or standing;I gave one leap to the threshold,A second to the gate,A third upon its back.I clapped my hands,And off at a gallop;I never lingeredTill I found you lyingBy a little furze-bushWithout pope or bishopOr priest or clericOne prayer to whisperBut an old, old woman,And her cloak about you,And your blood in torrents –Art O’Leary –I did not wipe it off,I drank it from my palms. **

Yuri Andeeivich KostolenkoIs an ordinary Russian (Ukrainian) thug,Wears a leather jacket, shades, a gold rolex,And if you ask him he might shrug and flexHis muscular beefy arms, perhaps displayHis shrapnel scars, the weird tattoosHe got when he and his mate SergeiWere high as kites and on the boozeWith Spetznatz in Afghanistan; Yuri smilesAnd gazes three, four thousand miles.He leaves this world behind. He is not unkindTo animals and little children, not on purpose,But he will chop off your fingers with a cleaver,Extract your teeth with pliers, connect live wiresTo sensitive parts, or blandly stick a telephone receiverUp your arse or down your throat. No use talking.Yuri never listens: Dollars or Euros do the walking.War was a game; this, the same: Bizzinez is Bizzinez.

Sobibor survivors testified at the trial that Stangl used to ride into the camp and attend ‘selections’ dressed in a white riding habit. ‘How could you go to the camp in that get-up?’ ‘The roads were very bad,’ he replied. ‘Riding was really the best mode of transport.’ I tried once more. ‘Yes, but to attend the unloading of these people who were about to die in a white riding habit …?’ ‘It was hot,’ he said.-- Gitta Sereny interview with Franz Stangl, ex-SS commandant of Sobibor.

The clouds come drifting from west to east,Other days they drift from east to west;Armies come with them from both directions,Not once, not twice, but many times:Russia, Germany; and also, Sweden and Austria,For sometimes the wind blows north and south.You wouldn’t want to be a simple peasantExposed on this martial gathering ground;And you really wouldn’t want to be a Jew,Not if you knew what was good for you.

The autumn of ’39 came in like a thunderclap.

It was more, this time, than foreign uniforms,Some new king squeezing the land for tax,Much more, so very much more than that:A half-cocked racial theory had landed.Auschwitz – Oswiecim – sums it up for us now,But many survived Auschwitz, hardly any survivedMaidenek … Sobibor … Chelmno … Treblinka.The utter disgrace of Europe, of historical mankind,Begins with the philosophes of Enlightened ParisAnd ends, logically, in the killing sheds of Poland.

My jobWas to do what I was told.

And this is just totally unacceptable.This is not only bad, it is wrong.One of the real reasons we hate the Nazis …Dislike the Germans, in fact, since Caesar’s time,A people arrogant in victory, abject in defeat;Either at your throat, or kissing your feet …Is their planned, industrial approach to murder,Their cold inhuman efficiency.

They make the rest of us look stupid

Or rather, make us look good by default:We prefer to kill in the heat of the moment,Or when we feel tired, upset, disgruntled,Or because we received a shitty letter from home,Or a lot of the time, too much of the time,Because we are drunk.Then we just want to forget all about it –Come home to those placid streams,

Block out bad dreams.

But we rarely feel bad when our victims are unseen,When there’s no personal memory of where we’ve beenOr of what we’ve done; we can drop a kilotonOf bombs with mad persistence; from a distanceThe blood and ruins, the scattered body parts,Leave no scars upon our hearts.

We trained very hard for this mission and we knew what we had to do. When we pulled away from the target we were lifted up by a shock wave, and I knew in that moment that the mission was successful … When I looked down, what I saw was an area of roiling tar where before there was a city. Do I have any feelings of guilt? Well, I knew there were human beings down there and I felt sorry for them, but we were sent out to do a job and we did it. That’s the deal. Anyway, if it hadn’t been me somebody else would have done it.-- Colonel Tibbets, commander of the ‘Enola Gay’.

Somebody else would have done it.I suppose Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, could have said the same.So could ‘Bomber Harris’, Dark Angel of Dresden.So could so many others.

I think it’s a miracle to have made it this far,All things considered. And also you, my friend,Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,—Hypocrite lecteur, —mon semblable, —mon frère!Thank God (!) for the common sense of the Soviets,Which is not quite as silly as is it sounds,When one thinks of the people on ‘Our Side’.

O, God, sweet Mary Jane,I saw you coming down the lane –Smoke without fire.We shall lie within a silken roomIn Sidon or in royal Tyre,Or if you willIn Notting Hill,Wherever you desire.

Love, reign on me!Reign over us all.

The man wanted for killing a British woman in a Tokyo flat had charmed her by sketching her portrait, police in Japan have said. Lindsay Hawker was beaten, stripped then strangled before being buried in a bathtub of sand, they added. It also emerged that chief suspect Tatsuyo Ishihashi had been warned in the past over claims he had stalked a young woman. Miss Hawker’s naked body was found in Ishihashi’s apartment on Monday.***

Japan is a doddle, so safe and so wonderful, so polite,You just walk around in a daze of incomprehensionFor the first few months; then the reaction kicks inAnd you start to hate the place, since you think the localsAre having a laugh at you, which, to be honest, they are,And then it doesn’t matter because you hit your second wind,And then you start to understand bits of the language,And then you start to actually speak it a bit, which meansYou meet all kinds of interesting new people, and, by thenMy friend, you are hooked. You go home on holidays, sure,But you always want to come back. It’s not exotic, like Thailand;It’s totally straight down the line but like some other planet.Imagine they wear a watch showing twenty-five hours in a dayAnd you are stuck with the good old traditional twenty-four;So you are in line for some of the time, sometimes minutes away,But never completely in synch. Yes, well, that’s my take on Japan.They know exactly what’s going down and you don’t have a clue.Some people freak and run home; the oddballs kind of like it.

Poor young Lindsay. What happened you?Where was the back-up, the gaijin friends?Can’t tell you the number of times when this rash poet,Soi-disant, befuddled, s-s-s-slightly discombobulated,Discerned menacing shadows perhaps closing in,When a voice from the darkness called out,‘Everything OK, mate? Put you in a taxi, orright?’The moment of danger … if it was danger … is over.So, Lindsay, what went down?Where were your friends when you needed them?Didn’t you know this geek meant trouble?I will never know, and I can’t double-guess;I never even knew you, and there are hundredsOf girls like you, but none quite like you, and we didn’tEven live in the same city, and so on and so on …But I can tell you this, or tell your family,That every gaijin guy in this country,Surrounded by 125 million Japanese,Hoards a nugget of shame, his share of the blame,That we couldn’t do better,That we couldn’t protect you.